Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

NigeWick

Waterways wrote:

if I do decide to leave UW, do I need to use the expensive phones lines to do it?

I detest the 0870 malarkey. Although just signing up to another company should do it, I would send customer services an e-mail to be on the safe side. Being me, I'd stop the DD too.

Nigel.

Speedy2006

Quentin wrote:

You don't need to even tell them.

Sign up with new companies and they will inform UW of the situation.

Hi. First post so please be gentle.

I thought that would happen and over the past couple of months I've been moving 2 land lines, 2 mobiles, gas and electricity away from UW based on information I gleaned from this excellent site.

This included Martin's advice to stick with BT and put my calls through Primus so when I received notification from BT that another supplier (they don't give you the name) had applied to have calls routed through them from 25 October, I thought nothing of it, assuming it was Primus.

Suddenly, a few days ago, every time we tried to dial out, we received a message that said "your call has been diverted to UW because you haven't paid your bill".

I called BT who couldn't tell me who the request for re-routing had come from, I called Primus who admitted they had screwed up by not informing me when THEIR request for re-routing had been denied, but, fair play, they immediately offered me a months free calls on both lines once the situation was sorted.

I then called UW. They told me that it was their policy to ask for calls to be re-routed back to them once a customer had moved away, in case the customer had made no other provision. They said that lots of companies do this. I had cancelled my direct debit to UW after I had left them and so the problem was that they couldn't collect payment for the service I hadn't asked them to provide.

BT are getting the call routing back but that takes 10 days. I can then move to Primus but that takes a further 14 days. UW want payment for a service I didn't want and,I must admit, mt inclination is to tell them to stuff it, but they are already threatening to register the debt so "I'll have problems with further credit".

How would anyone else play this?

Just as a matter of interest, UW's customer service people are becoming ultra sensitive. I raised my voice slightly during the conversation and was threatened that I would be cut off. I asked for a supervisor and the line immediately went dead. In my experience, if one complains, those are the calls that are never recorded.

hurrah

Welcome Speedy 2006.

When they say" its their policy to ask for calls to be re-routed back to them once a customer had moved away" it appears to be a deliberate attempt to defeat the procedures set up for people to have freedom of choice of suppliers. Report them to Ofcom .I am not aware of any other provider that does this.Also get BT to log a complaint with Open reach that they Telecom Plus are obstructing people to move back to BT.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/landline/

Speedy2006

Thanks. Thats a great start and very simple to make the complaint.

hurrah

Speedy2006 wrote:

Thanks. Thats a great start and very simple to make the complaint.

I have highlighted your problem in the Home Phone Forum and hopefully one of the phone guru,s that hangs out their might be able to offer more advice.

Or perhaps one of their more helpful distributors might be able to give you the e-mail address of their CEO or the Director of Customer Service so you can sort out your final bill.
https://www.telecomplus.co.uk/store/board.taf?exref=

NigeWick

Ravi Khanna is the Customer Services Director. So you could try rkhanna@telecomplus.co.uk or perhaps ravikhanna@

I haven't had any dealings with him so do not have a definitive address. I hope you get sorted soon.

Nigel.

sikejsudjek

I would send a registered letter to UW's registered address with the following :

State the facts including dates. State that you have lost money as a result of their breach of contract. Add up the cost and threaten them with the small claims court. I would make clear that your contract ended when you told them to end it, and no further payments will be made. Ask for compensation for the delays you have had changing supplier. Also warn them that you will be contacting Ofcom and Trading Standards if you don't hear back within 10 days.

Don't worry about them claiming you have a debt. As far as I can see they owe you for messing up your phone service after you ended your contract with them.

jamescollett

I am a customer of Utility Warehouse and have been for more than a year. It started off looking good but I am growing increasingly uncertain of the benefit of membership of this "discount club", specially now that I hear of these online tariffs. And of course that twenty quid for just turning up must be considered in the sums.

I read here a lot of claims that UW are not at all a low-cost option for gas and electricity. Where can we find published rates for gas and electricity? The we could do our own sums.

Folks are griping about the broadband comparisons but really for most homes aren't the dominant utility bills for gas and electricity? Mine are. I guess I'm going to have to take some readings and do some good old fashioned calculations to really figure out how much I should be paying.

One gripe that persists here is that of the 0871 customer services number. The answer is simple - don't dial that number, but dial 0208 955 5095 instead. I use the SayNoTo0870.com website to get these handy landline numbers. Tell your friends!

I just used that 0208 number to talk to UW customer services and even though I was in the queue for 10 minutes it did not cost me an extra penny because my T-Mobile price plan has minutes to spare.

I should say that the lady I spoke to was friendly and helpful. It's the luck of the draw; a month ago I called and I had to converse with a moron.

hurrah

Welcome jamescollet.

1.Their latest energy rates can be found here. https://www.utilitywarehouse.co.uk/store/energy.taf?exref=
Click on region you live in.

2.Yes their old geographical rate customer service still works at moment but it will be cut off in due course.Its interesting to note that although they claim to give you calls to other T-Plus users, calls to their own 0208 numbers are not included.

4_Pete's_Sake

Waterways wrote:

I just checked out Npower and they were more expensive than UW which is: elec - 8.41p per kW and monthly standing charge of £3.93. Gas: 2.69p KW, £2.65 standing charge.

I am not sure what area you live in but I do not think that these are npowers ON-LINE tariffs, which are much cheaper.

Alternatively Checkout Ebico, this is not an online tariff just very cheap. Much much cheaper than UW.